Hall Of Fame*

Here is one of the best ads of all time:

Doesn’t it hold up just brilliantly today?

It would easily have won BTAA ad of the year for the last few years.

Have a look at each example. They are both original and universal and that is a really tough combination to get right.

And the VO: John Cooper Clarke is a very unusual but absolutely excellent choice, conveying a sort of bemused ironic tolerance (try asking your next VO to do that).

And that lovely pause where the bloke spits. It’s a truly wonderful example of intelligent, original, brave advertising that you just can’t argue with. We all want to be that guy who doesn’t play by the shitty little rules in life, and here’s 60 seconds that gives you really smart permission to do just that. How many times can the brief, ‘Don’t run with the herd’ have been crapped out by a lazy planner? Here is the best way to answer it.

And here is the best thing to play someone who says you shouldn’t do negative advertising. Do an ad with a fat naked bloke and the words ‘don’t masturbate’, then set a car on fire.

Thank you Charles Inge and Lowe. The Cannes Grand Prix was well deserved (it beat Surfer, fact fans).

*An occasional series where I hark back to better days in the forlorn hope that they will return.